overwhelmed with
remorse. He apologized profusely to Stirling for having committed such
a solecism.

"I am nothing but an irascible old idiot, sir, and I hope you will
excuse my constitutional weakness, but I really could not recognize
that man."

Stirling's inveterate amiability soon set him at ease again.

"It is well for Wickersham to hear the truth now and then," he said. "I
guess he hears it rarely enough. Most people feed him on lies."

Some others appeared to take the same view of the matter, for the
General was more popular than ever.

Gordon found a new zest in showing his father about the city. Everything
astonished him. He saw the world with the eyes of a child. The streets,
the crowds, the shop-windows, the shimmering stream of carriages that
rolled up and down the avenue, the elevated railways which had just been
constructed, all were a marvel to him.

"Where do these people get their wealth?" he asked.

"Some of them get it from rural gentlemen who visit the town," said
Gordon, laughing.

The old fellow smiled. "I suspect a good many of them get it from us
countrymen. In fact, at the last we furnish it all. It all comes out of
the ground."

"It is a pity that we did not hold on to some of it," said Gordon.

The old gentleman glanced at him. "I do not want any of it. My son,
Agar's standard was the best: 'neither poverty nor riches.' Riches
cannot make a gentleman."

Keith laughed and called him old-fashioned, but he knew in his heart
that he was right.

The beggars who accosted him on the street never turned away
empty-handed. He had it not in his heart to refuse the outstretched
hand of want.

"Why, that man who pretended that he had a large family and was out of
work is a fraud," said Gordon. "I'll bet that he has no family and
never works."

"Well, I didn't give him much," said the old man. "But remember what
Lamb said: 'Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress.
It is good to believe him. Give, and under the personate father of a
family think, if thou pleasest, that thou hast relieved an indigent
bachelor.'"

A week later Gordon was on his way to England and the General had
returned home.

It was just after this that the final breach took place between Norman
Wentworth and his wife. It was decided that for their children's sake
there should be no open separation; at least, for the present. Norman
had business which would take him away for a good part of the time,